The Power of Clarity

I presented a building today. It was all about lift. The volume shot off the side of a cliff, its light steel frame cantilevered authoritatively, reaching as far as it could go without a single support. Glass wrapped the flying bar, emphasizing its soaring quality and providing views to all sides as if no walls were there. Its base was legibly anchored to the cliffside: light materials were light; heavy materials were heavy. It made sense. The reviewers loved it. “Bravo!” they said, “Your intent is very clear, and you’ve carried it out admirably. Every move contributes to the main idea.” I walked away feeling great.

Buildings are not built to be understood. Buildings are not built to be objectified. Buildings are built to house life in all its complexities.

I presented a building today. It wasn’t about any one thing.

At some points it was about lifting, at some points it was about falling, and at some points it was about resting. The heaviest points were the most suspended, and the lightest points were the most grounded. The most intimate spaces

Trent Sexton, M.Arch

were put right next to the most exposed. Public and private were not clearly separated. The exact same wall felt thick and monolithic at some points and thin and layered at others. The reviewers weren’t impressed. “I can’t find a thesis for your project,” one said. “What’s the diagram? What move is most important to you? This needs a clearer hierarchy of design moves.”

I went to a building today. It was all about lift.

I walked off the side of the cliff, immediately feeling an exhilarating sensation of suspension. The all-encompassing views were gratifying, and I stood enjoying that single moment. After basking in the thrill for a time, I sat down to read a book. “No, this spot doesn’t feel right.” I moved. “No, this spot feels the same... So does this one.” I went back another day to try reading again. Maybe today would feel different. It felt the same.

The building was made to accommodate one thing, one feeling, one experience, and, while that one experience was great, there wasn’t much beyond it. I walked away feeling... ok.

The plaza was ruthless and bare, the building towering above, muscular and solitary in the center. I uncomfortably sidled up to the door, only to find it was locked. Uncomfortable and somewhat relieved, I left to come back the next day. When I came back and braved the plaza to get inside, I discovered a different building than the one I had known before. Roughness had become smooth, hard had become soft, and enormous had become human scale. “Ah,” I thought, “This is the story the building’s trying to tell. A callous façade and a delicate interior. This makes sense.” Then I got to the atrium. Suddenly, the building became angry again, human scale reverted back to the scale of gods. As I moved through, these switches kept happening. Supports that had felt robust started to show strain, walls that had felt thick started to suggest thinness. Conflicting narratives of power and weakness, discomfort and repose, and exposure and intimacy. I felt different things every second I was in the space; it opened itself up to different atmospheres constantly. It was amazing.

Clarity is often a cherished ideal in architecture school. Buildings that are clearer in intent and execution are deemed better designed, and consistency is championed. If it’s powerful, it’s powerful everywhere. If it’s modest, it’s modest everywhere. Is that right? Who has ever gone to a building and said, “Ah yes, I love how easy to understand this is! Wonderful!” Who prefers an IKEA manual to Tolstoy? Who prefers a commercial jingle to a symphony? The IKEA manual and jingle are clear—they get their ideas across—but they aren’t giving us anything we deeply crave. So why are we designing buildings like the jingle, selling their main points as clearly as possible, making sure never to have any fat, never to deviate from that core idea?

No, we love in the shadows, not under a spotlight. What person doesn’t look more beautiful in low light, when you have to lean in close to make out their features? Their features become more beautiful, more poignant, more distinguished when they’re held back. The shadows sharpen them, casting a shade below a cheekbone, the height of which you never really noticed before or adding a glimmer to an eye that was snuffed out in the sunlight. Thus, I suggest an architecture of seduction rather than of the explicit, the complex rather than the clear. It doesn’t tell you what you’ll get, but it begs you to find out, delighting in its fogginess and moonshadows. Not an architecture that delights in its ability to confuse, but one that is comfortable offering multiple narratives. At some points it may be hard. At some it may be soft. At some it may be both, and at some it is in between. When the inscrutable as well as the contradictory are welcomed, the amazing, the unexpected can occur. So, we must stop relishing clarity as an uninterrogated value judgement unless we aspire to invalidate the profession. To change one’s view, to see the world in a different way, one must engage the unfamiliar, the unknown, the unclear. Clarity is not always wrong, but it cannot be the only option. We must not be afraid to venture towards the inexpressible, that which can’t quite be expressed in words but that which we feel in some other way, maybe in our senses, maybe in our souls, maybe in our dreams. Architecture is not words after all, and if we hope to reach the liminality between ourselves and something other we must move beyond the clear figuration of an idea and towards something more real. Our attempts to objectify architecture may kill its mysteries and silent beauties.